


Refuge

by Marasa



Category: Succession (TV 2018)
Genre: (literally), Angst, Bisexual Character, Crying, Cuddling & Snuggling, Drug Use, Feelings Realization, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Massage, Mutual Masturbation, Pining, Scent Kink, Sleeping Together, bisexual shiv Roy, post-which side are you on
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-21
Updated: 2020-12-21
Packaged: 2021-03-10 22:55:05
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,530
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28215066
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Marasa/pseuds/Marasa
Summary: It was almost four am when a knock sounded at Stewy’s door.
Relationships: Stewy Hosseini/Kendall Roy
Comments: 12
Kudos: 36





	Refuge

It was almost four am when a knock sounded at Stewy’s door.

It called him out of cozy sleep as if in a dream and there was a second where thought he still might be sleeping. But the violent pummeling at the door returned with heightened vigor, a scary desperation audible in its frequency which had Stewy holding tight to the comforter and racking his brain for the nearest makeshift weapon if this really was some anti-capitalist vigilante beckoning him to the guillotine. 

He always knew this day would come.

_“Stewy! Stewy, open the fucking door!”_

All thoughts of self-defense fell away immediately at the muffled voice somehow still familiar despite the distance. This fact of his adamant attention, and perhaps even devotion, might have frightened Stewy more than impending death. Given that he had already surrendered, it was all so poetically tragic.

_“Fucking—Stewy! Stewy!”_

Stewy tripped in the dark on the way to the door. The automated lights lining the hallway were slow to wake and followed after him in a dim glow offering just enough light for Stewy to recognize the face of the man on the stoop when he finally opened the door.

Kendall appeared gaunt. Pale, sickly. His dark, dilated pupils contrasted the bloodshot mess of his eyes cradled by black bags. He smelled sour: club sweat, stale alcohol, heady smoke, old vomit. It was all indicative of too much dirty fun with people who scared him.

“Finally, dude.” Kendall’s voice was rough, his mouth dry. He pushed passed Stewy as if he owned the place and stormed inside. “I’m fucking freezing! It’s snowing.”

“I see that,” Stewy said, dazed. He turned away from the door and closed it behind him, eyes unblinking as he stared at Kendall’s back. “What—where’s your coat?”

“Don’t know. Who cares.”

Rather angelic light blanketed the god-forsaken prodigal son as he mulled around Stewy’s kitchen, pulling out drawers and opening cupboards. Kendall brought out a crystal glass with a worrisome urgency and rushed over to the faucet. He couldn’t wait for it to fill completely before bringing it to his lips and guzzling it back.

This was a dream. It had to be. 

“Where the fuck have you been, dude?”

Kendall wiped his mouth with the back of his wind-bitten hand. “Doesn’t matter.”

Stewy scoffed, heart hammering in his chest. “It kinda does, man, because I haven’t heard from you in over a fucking month.”

And how gruelling it had been.

Kendall had disappeared without a trace in the wake of his attempted coup. Stewy had been there that day, but his survival instincts had prevented him from boarding a sinking ship. Horrible truth be told, it had been easier to abstain from voting when Kendall wasn’t in the room. If Stewy had to look Kendall in the eye and go back on his word, well then he’d probably be damned to Hell too right now.

It was survivor’s guilt and complicated feelings that had Stewy anxious of Kendall’s well-being once the dust settled. He checked every beep or buzz on his phone in hopes it was from Kendall telling him where he was or that he was okay at the very least. Stewy asked around, even employing some of Sandy’s resources to get any crumb of information he could about the missing Roy. It all came up null and Stewy caved soon after, leaving him to speak to Logan.

Logan scared Stewy. Logan scared everyone. It was fear Stewy felt standing before him at his egregious empire that was Waystar, but Stewy also felt desperation and anxious irritation and a broken something in the pit of his being that had already been in ruins before this momentous fuckup but now it was aching fresh and new, this voided vacuum where his heart used to be.

“Have you heard from him?” Stewy had asked.

“Who?” There was a pause, then a precarious whisper of dark interest. “Have you?”

Stewy’s hands drew into fists at his side. His fingernails bit into his palms. “How are you sure he’s not dead?” 

“I haven’t seen anything in the papers.”

“You are the news.”

“And we’ve got real news to run.”

Stewy hadn’t even bothered trying to make the case of why a father should care about his son especially in a time of need. He left out of Logan’s office in a fury, taken a half-empty mug of lukewarm coffee from a nearby desk and thrown it against the wall. The employees on the floor all stared, wide-eyed and silent, at the broken porcelain and the mocha Pollock splattered against the wall.

“What the fuck are you looking at?” Stewy spat and stormed off to the elevator. 

His erraticism quelled somewhat in the passing weeks but it was replaced by a consistent, nagging need to know Kendall was okay. Stewy never called him. He knew there would be no answer. The thought terrified him. Maybe it was the implication of something horrible having happened. Maybe he didn’t know what he would say if Kendall did answer. 

So this—Kendall here, now, after all this time—was… jarring.

Stewy could have gone to his knees at this very moment upon seeing Kendall still in one piece and breathing. Another part of him wanted to scream in Kendall’s face and curse him for ever trying to go against the giant when he knew what would happen to him, to them. 

_Abandon all hope, ye who enter here_ , should have been engraved above the doors of Waystar Royco.

Kendall refilled his glass while Stewy fell apart in every way not visible. Kendall wasn’t nearly as suave as he may have wanted to come off as. His hunched stature suggested uncertainty. He refused eye contact. 

“ _Hey_.” Stewy’s voice wavered with a degree of desperation. “Fucking look at me. Kendall—“

“Get out of my face.” 

It was almost comical, Stewy thought, that Kendall thought he could come in here and act like he was in charge. But that had always been their dynamic, hadn’t it? They weren’t always what they seemed; bold Stewy and unsure Kendall. It was Kendall who had immense power over Stewy’s verbose but empty-threated self, only ever when it came to Kendall.

“You can’t just not talk to me for weeks and then turn up on my doorstep looking like a fucking disaster. What am I supposed to do? Stand here and watch?” How could he describe just how much he felt in this moment for Kendall? There was no way to ever admit to it when it had backfired last time. This was fucked, painful, near torturous to be forced to see Kendall like this after so long when Stewy had assumed the absolute worst. 

“I can’t do this,” Stewy said. “You can’t come around here when you feel like it, not without an explanation. You’re fucking _missing_ , dude. Your family doesn’t know where you are—“

“Shut up!” Kendall gripped the edge of the sink, looked down into the stainless steel basin. “Shut up…”

Stewy shook his head. “I can’t do this.”

Now Kendall looked at him, an eyebrow twitching upward. “I thought you were a friend.”

“I know you thought that. You made that abundantly clear last time you came over.”

Kendall recoiled. Stewy felt bad but didn’t show it.

“Don’t—“

“Don’t what, Kendall?”

“Don’t walk away from me.” His prior conviction was leaking rapidly from his voice. 

“Nah, I’ll do whatever I want. Works for you, apparently.”

Stewy passed by him without a glance. He grabbed his coat from the hanger. He was still in lounge-y type clothes but they were designer and made him look more comfortably rich than outright messy; no need to drag this out and get changed.

Stewy had hooked up with a guy two weeks ago, some guy with a pinstripe suit and a crooked smile. He still had his number, though it was under a description than actual name so he’d have to play it off. He could probably stay with him tonight. Stewy would have to call him ‘baby’ all night; the thought soured his already upset stomach. 

“W-Wait, hold on—”

“You can stay here if you need somewhere to stay,” Stewy said. “I’d rather you stay here than at whatever warehouse rave is of the hour.”

“Stewy!”

Stewy pivoted on his heels. _“What?”_

A breath punched out of his lungs as Kendall collided with his chest. Kendall’s arms were wrapped bruisingly tight around his torso before Stewy could properly understand what was happening, his face digging hard against Stewy’s shoulder. 

Kendall felt small, seconds away from falling to pieces. 

“Okay. Okay, hey.” Stewy wrapped his arms around Kendall’s trembling frame. He placed a hand on the back of his head, holding Kendall to him. “Ken.”

Fingers dug into Stewy’s back. A cough sounded, brimming with unshed tears. Stewy winced at the sting of Kendall’s fingernails but answered the sensation with a slow caress of his palm on Kendall’s back, his other thumb stroking just above his ear. 

“What’s going on?” Stewy muttered. “Talk to me.”

_“...Please.”_

Stewy almost made a pained noise at Kendall’s tearful plea. Personal feelings, difficult histories, all of it aside—Kendall needed to be here with him right now. 

Stewy pressed a kiss to the side of Kendall’s head. “I’m right here,” he murmured, concern drawing his eyebrows together and shifting his voice deeper with gravitas. “You’ll be okay; I got you. Ken. You’re okay.”

* * *

It had felt like a promise, so Stewy had taken off his coat and stepped out of his polished loafers with a sigh of resignation. Kendall defenses had fallen but this had left him somber and silent. A palpable aura of shame surrounded him. Stewy didn’t mention it, even though he could and almost did. 

“What’d you take?” Stewy asked once they were in the master bathroom. “Anything of note?”

Kendall shook his head. He named a downer or two, too much alcohol on top of it. Not the ideal mixture by any means but they would have to work with it. 

Stewy turned on the rather roomy shower, lined with black shale and fit with mood lighting. Stewy kept them off for the time being given how tired Kendall’s eyes must be from lack of sleep and an onslaught of club lighting. The dimness of the bathroom light was ideal for times like this, had been ideal that night almost a year ago.

They’d started fucking around in college. It was for convenience at the start, a remedy for waking up with hard-ons or just something to quell the sudden spikes of horniness between crushing studies and obnoxious keggers. Rooming together at Harvard, they had made the discovery that Stewy liked having his dick sucked and Kendall liked sucking dick—it all just worked out. Stewy had to learn how to pay Kendall back in all the ways Kendall liked, and that usually ended up with Stewy being deep inside of him under the covers or against the wall or on the floor.

They ended up learning how to undo each other with the slightest touch. Every time either of them did so much as pat the other’s back or squeeze the other’s bicep in passing, it was powerfully familiar, like traversed terrain, a reminder of a place they had explored together and that was only theirs.

Stewy thought they’d outgrow it. That was a stupid thought.

Things were always changing in their lives: investments, professional positions, alliances, relationships. The only constant was each other as well as the late night booty-calls and phone sex in the back of private cars with the tinted separator up. They weren’t as feral and desperate as they had been in their early twenties but it was a common enough occurrence to end a real interaction with a quickie or a whispered tease in a boardroom full of suits of how, _“You’d look really good with my cock in your mouth right now.”_

It was fun. It didn’t mean much outside of the urge for sex. That had changed months ago. 

For whatever reason, sentimentality and romanticism had infiltrated their time together that weekend in May. Stewy thought this might have come after another disagreement with Logan or some tension with Rava; he couldn’t remember but whatever it was had them feeling exhausted and broken open. 

It had not been about getting off that time. It had been about licking each other’s wounds, new and old, sharing breath, tasting spit and skin, soothing each other from the inside out. And that was when something had clicked in Stewy’s psyche, something resonating deeply in his bones that went: _Oh fuck. You need him.  
_  
Every kiss they shared that night had been longer, softer, stickier. There was no rush as Stewy held Kendall’s cheek and slipped his tongue into his mouth under the showerhead spewing water like gentle rain. Kendall’s hands had been everywhere but slow in getting there; his palms slid across Stewy’s slick body as he updated his personal reference of what Stewy felt like now compared to how he did in his younger days. His sides were a bit fluffier now, his pecs a bit softer but his shoulders were sturdy, his biceps just a little bigger. His thighs were still strong and his dick was still hard for Kendall who gripped it possessively in his hand, stroking a thumb sweetly across the glans with a slow drag of his tongue over Stewy’s jugular, pleading, _“Stewy, need you.”_

It hadn’t been fucking; Stewy wished it had been. Maybe then his brain wouldn’t have broken and he wouldn’t be so in love with his best friend. Stewy had taken Kendall into arms and pressed him against the shower wall. The warm water had dripped over their naked bodies as Kendall’s legs wrapped tight around his waist and Stewy’s hips rolled languidly up into him. It was reverent and unhurried and it had been terrifyingly intense just how much it had felt like they were melting into each other. 

This was another reason Stewy had been so adamant of leaving before Kendall had shown how much he needed him: when Kendall was here, every square inch of Stewy’s home reminded him of their history. 

Kendall was the ghost haunting this place.

Kendall fumbled with his button-down. There was a distinct _click_ every time his fingernails slipped over the buttons. He tried once, twice, but he was trembling so harshly that it was useless.

Kendall huffed, embarrassed or annoyed, his hands falling to his sides as Stewy came nearer and began unbuttoning his shirt. 

“Why’re you so shaky?” Kendall’s shirt fell open revealing sweaty, pale skin and pert nipples, goosebumps blossoming down his flat stomach at exposure to the room’s cold. 

“Scared,” Kendall mumbled.

“Of what?”

“You.”

Stewy looked up. Kendall wouldn’t make eye contact. 

“Why’re you scared of me?”

Kendall didn’t answer. Stewy’s stomach sunk almost as deeply as his mood now, a sobering sort of exhaustion that had him momentarily hopeless. The backs of his fingers barely touched Kendall’s belly as he undid the bottom buttons of his shirt.  
  
“Don’t be scared.” Stewy’s voice was so quiet, it was almost inaudible. “There’s no reason to be scared.”

Stewy left so Kendall could properly get undressed and only came back once he was sure Kendall was under the showerhead and obscured by steam. Stewy left him a change of clothes on the counter and picked up his discarded clothes, smelling rancid, from the floor. He brought them out into the bedroom so he could rifle privately through the pockets. There was a baggie of coke in the front right pocket of Kendall’s pants. Stewy debated on whether or not to flush it but ultimately ruled he was not that cruel so he tucked it at the back of a nearby drawer. 

Stewy’s clothes were oversized on Kendall’s narrow frame. The pair of baggy gray sweatpants hung low on his hips. The shirt gave him ample room compared to the skin-tight tops Kendall usually wore. Kendall stumbled slightly as he left the bathroom, tired and still a little out of it. Stewy refused to hover. It was demeaning and not like him, but it was harder this time around to not wrap an arm around his waist and be his support. 

Kendall slid into bed none too smoothly and settled in under the covers. Stewy leaned forward, supported by one hand on the mattress so he could shake Kendall’s shoulder with the other.

”Kendall. Lay on your side.”

Kendall hummed awake, giving a small smirk. “You really do care.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

But Kendall was delirious and too tired to answer. He turned onto his side and nestled back into the blankets, eyes closed and breath steady. 

Stewy remained leaning on the bed, watching him. He was still stuck halfway to disbelief, unsure if this sight was really true. It was like his mind was trying to catch up with reality and until it did, Stewy was free to peer upon Kendall’s sickly face without any thought of what tomorrow or the future would bring. It was enough to have him here, safe and accounted for, after such a scary absence.

Stewy sighed. He turned off the light.

Darkness fell over the room. It was as comforting as it was frightening. A new dread met Stewy as tonight’s events became inescapable in the silence. He probably wouldn’t be able to sleep tonight.

Stewy was just about to push off the bed and stand upright once more when he was halted by Kendall reaching for him. 

“No, you take the bed,” Stewy said. “I’ll be down the hall.” But Kendall’s fingers were already tangled in his sleeve. “Ken, I’ll be a few feet away—“

“Stay.”

The bluish-black shade of night having fallen over Kendall’s face where he lay on Stewy’s pillow softened his features. Stewy’s chest ached where he once thought it to be empty and broken. It was a pulsing sort of feeling, warm and lovely and stinging. 

Stewy was wordless in his daze, eye contact uninterrupted as he crawled over Kendall and settled in bed behind him. Kendall’s fingers were still twisted in his sleeve and prevented the space between them Stewy might have intended. Stewy came closer to spoon up behind him, a hand resting on his waist out of necessity. Only then did Kendall’s fingers loosen their grip on Stewy’s sleeve and only then did their eye contact finally break as Kendall’s fluttered shut, something like relief fanning out of his nostrils. 

Sometimes after they fucked, Stewy would get emotional but never once had he voiced the saccharine thoughts that would strike him. It didn’t matter; Kendall could probably feel in the way Stewy wrapped his arms around him tightly and how he tenderly licked the cooling sex sweat from his temple that Stewy was dreaming of something more between them that could live and thrive outside of the bedroom. 

Stewy wondered what Kendall felt now in the doubtful rigidness of his arm over his waist and the tense and calculated rise and fall of his chest against his back. Did it come across as lost as Stewy felt? Was it anything remotely that Kendall needed or was Stewy failing at being a considerate person?

Maybe he was just letting Kendall down one more time. 

Then, the pitiful sound of crying interrupted the tense quiet.

It started as a small sniffle and then fell apart into uncontrollable sobs. Half were choked on and did not break through Kendall’s clenched teeth. His whole chest convulsed with the shattered breaths. Stewy’s posture softened and he slid a strong hand up Kendall’s front so his palm was resting on Kendall’s chest, just over his heart. 

Stewy could not offer any meaningful consolation to ease the extent of pain audible in Kendall’s cries but he did the best he could. He held Kendall close as he cried, not saying anything at all but being there as his refuge from the world. 

A particularly hard sob rocked Kendall, a whimper following it. Stewy squeezed his eyes shut, pressed his forehead against the back of Kendall’s head, wishing silently that he could take all of this away from him.

* * *

Kendall was still a little sick that next morning. The excess was starting to catch up with him. He was still asleep but just on the side of too warm, skin slightly damp from what Stewy assumed must have been his body sweating out all the poison he’d ingested. 

Stewy was still wrapped up around him. He was almost on top of him in a way that beget an innate protectiveness he had for no one else except Kendall. It had been awhile since Stewy had shared a bed with someone in the morning. He was an expert at dipping out before his hookup even knew what was happening.

“You’re leaving?” a rather pathetic businessman two months ago had asked. “You can stay the night. We can cuddle.”

Stewy had coughed a malicious laugh, buttoning his pants as he slipped on his shoes. “I’m not fucking married to you.”

Remembering his own wordage made his blood turn cold. Stewy rolled off of Kendall and unwrapped his arms from around him. He hurried off to the bathroom and into the spray of freezing cold water beneath the showerhead.

Stewy was going to send Kendall a text before he left but he didn’t want the ringtone to wake him, so he wrote a note instead telling Kendall he’d be back by one, two at the latest, and to help himself to anything he wanted except for the glass container of lime green purée in the refrigerator.

 _(It’s a face mask)_ Stewy wrote and then crossed it out, felt stupid for crossing it out and rewrote the warning just above the scribbled mess. 

“Fuck,” he muttered to himself and left before he could do more damage. 

It was strange seeing the Roys at Waystar knowing Kendall was sleeping soundly back home in his bed, unbeknownst to them. Logan was especially in a bad mood and refused to see him. Stewy considered it lucky; if he had stood face to face with the old man, he might just have slipped and admitted he knew where Kendall was and how he was doing.

When Stewy came back, he noticed everything was as he had left it. The note was still on the counter. He stepped carefully into the bedroom only to find Kendall still under the covers, albeit in a different position than how Stewy had left him this morning. 

The comforter pulled up to Kendall’s shoulders obscured the rise and fall of his chest. He appeared so still. Stewy, thoroughly unnerved, approached the side of the bed and extended a finger, holding it just under his nose. He was a little too clumsy in his panicked uncertainty and ended up accidentally poking Kendall’s philtrum. Kendall awoke with a confused hum, eyes squinted as he peered blearily up at Stewy. 

“Just checking to see if you were still breathing, dude,” Stewy said.

Kendall groaned, rolled onto his back. “I kinda woke up a couple hours ago but I couldn’t get out of bed.” His voice was husky, an octave lower in a way that made Stewy’s dick twitch. “I’m a lazy piece of shit.”

“You’re just crashing. When’s the last time you slept?”

“Can’t remember.”

Stewy left the room and returned with a glass of water, which Kendall took a sip of before handing it back to him. 

“You must hate me,” Kendall said as Stewy placed the glass on the bedside table. 

“Some days.”

“Showing up here like this in the middle of the night. After what happened.” Kendall’s eyes were shimmery in that sad way of his, his mouth turning downward into its Droopy Dog configuration. “Sleeping in your bed. The same bed we fucked in. I’m evil.”

Something painful pulled in Stewy’s chest. “Ken—“

“No, I am.”

“Shut up. Shut the fuck up.” Stewy’s heartbeat was growing in volume behind his ears. His palms were suddenly clammy. “What happened happened. There’s no changing it. That doesn’t mean I kick you out. I’m here for you. You're right; we’re friends.”

Kendall winced again at the word. He moved a hand up to cover one of his ears, slid his palm into his hair so he could tug at it as if he were punishing himself.

“It’s not a bad thing to be friends,” Stewy said.

“I’m evil,” Kendall murmured.

“Yeah, sure. Whatever.”

Stewy stormed out of the room without a single glance behind him and went into the living room to watch some movie Roman told him he worked on, though he couldn’t really focus.

* * *

Stewy never fancied himself a ‘feelings’ kind of person but the Roys had whittled away his conviction over a lifetime of close proximity and growing friendship. There was a spot reserved for each of them within his chest, though they did not share the space equally. 

Kendall might have been Stewy’s entire heart. Selfish and greedy, he was, setting up camp in Stewy’s chest from their youth. But there still remained space for the others, one of which belonged to Siobhan. 

Stewy treated her like a little sister in their youth, teasing her relentlessly but being the first to stand up for her when the moment arose. He had not been immune to fielding sobering feelings upon seeing Shiv tear up on one rare occasion after fighting with her girlfriend at the time. 

She was sixteen, Stewy nineteen, and they were all at the Roys’ lake house to celebrate Kendall’s nineteenth birthday. It had been kind of late, everyone else asleep but Stewy was still hungry from the joint he and Kendall had smoked earlier. He was making himself a peanut butter and jelly sandwich in the kitchen when she returned from a smoke and a lengthy phone call.

Shiv had not answered his half-assed greeting but snorted wetly, very much unintentionally. The sound had not only drawn Stewy’s concerned attention but led to Shiv’s surrender. She collapsed on the couch before she could make it to her room, unconcerned with how she appeared now when she was usually so guarded. Stewy craned his head over the kitchen bartop, waiting for some kind of ‘gotcha!’ but when Shiv remained sniffly and hidden, he left his sandwich half-completed on the kitchen island. 

“Hey.” The rare warmth blanketing his voice had been unearthed with the help of the weed and his surrogate little sister’s teary face. “Hey, what happened? Sissy.”

Stewy had begun calling Shiv “sissy” as a joke, just another attempt to annoy her, but the name had ended up sticking in some genuine way. It was like that time Stewy had incorporated “wicked” into his vocabulary to poke fun at the transfer student from London who had joined the polo team, only then to find himself using it in earnest. It took a while to break the habit.

Stewy sat down closely beside her. He waited for her to speak, fully expecting her to tell him to fuck off, but then she whispered in a shaky voice what she had yet to tell anyone.

“I loved her.” Shiv shook her head, shrugged. “I really loved her.”

Stewy’s heart broke because he knew what it was to love a boy who might not ever return the sentiment. He wrapped an arm around her shoulders and brought her in against his chest. She cried and then quieted and Stewy knew she was feeling a tiny bit better when she spoke in a nearly inaudible whisper against his shoulder, “You fucking reek.”

That night, they shared a plush blanket on the sofa and Stewy’s sandwich as they watched bad television on the living room’s flatscreen, turned quiet enough to not wake the huge house. Her head had fallen onto his shoulder at one point and it had been bittersweet, their connection over the shared experience of unrequited love. 

Shiv was better than all of them, better than Stewy. He only wished for her now that she was farther away from all this chaos but she weathered the storm. He’d slipped without even thinking once, accidentally calling her “sissy” at Waystar and her face was torn between two expressions, one of angered annoyance and the other of nostalgic yearning to return to their youth when none of this really mattered. 

And then there were the boys. The boys would be the end of him.

Roman was flighty and rarely genuine with his emotions. Stewy was torn between being selfishly thankful for not being forced to feel while somehow feeling anyway, somewhat worried for the youngest Roy who he assumed must have the most issues given how many fronts he put on. 

Roman had shown up at Stewy and Kendall’s apartment when they were in college. He must have been in the area, taken a private jet to Cambridge. Kendall had been absent, probably a short-term internship or business program or something. Roman had arrived in a tizzy of restlessness and that was when Stewy recognized beneath Roman’s irritated asides the unique panicked pain that came after most interactions with Logan Roy. 

Roman was fired up. He spat curses about his dad and his stellar older brother, whom he hated at that particular moment because he was gone off to fuck knew where and had left him here behind to deal with dad alone. Stewy thought this strange but would come to better understand the Kendall-Roman dynamic which boiled down at high tension moments to be Kendall as Roman’s shield, his protector.

Stewy had stood before the pacing Roy, humming his agreement but not chancing a word. Stewy remembered Roman looking scared and small, so small. Had anyone else shown up at his flat like this and Stewy would have told to shut up and fuck off but the blood running in Roman’s veins was the same as Ken’s and it was like magic, how suddenly that fact of familial closeness rendered Stewy incapable of doing anything other than taking care of him.

That night, Stewy had somehow managed to talk him down and gave Roman Kendall’s bed to sleep in. He felt somewhat better about this option given they didn’t fuck in Kendall’s bed ever. Kendall always teased him for this fact, this weird possessiveness underlying Stewy’s consistent need to bed Kendall on the very sheets he slept on every night, those same sheets he only washed once a month, twice if he was feeling generous. 

Stewy remembered waking up the next morning to Roman sleeping on the floor next to his bed, one of Kendall’s blankets over him. Stewy hadn’t mentioned it but had exercised uncharacteristic kindness toward him because it was hard to see Roman like this. 

That same unfair sympathy wore on him now despite his best efforts when he spied Roman’s name on an incoming call where he sat in the backseat of the car headed to the house. Stewy steadied himself with a sigh and put the phone to his ear.

“Hey, Ro-Ro.”

“Hey, you capitalist pigshit. How are things in the fourth circle of Hell?”

“Definitely better if I didn’t have to deal with your dad everyday. I had to sit there and listen to him babble on about all the irrelevant shit he wants to buy. My wallet was fucking weeping.”

“The old bastard talks big. He’s a window-shopper at heart, really.”

“Why do I feel like you’re lying?”

“Because I am. I’m just trying to make you feel better.”

“That’s sweet of you. So what’s up?”

There was a pause. “Hey, um. Stewy.” Roman’s tone shifted. He sounded hesitant all of a sudden. “You wouldn’t happen to know where Kendall was by any chance? I mean. I don’t know, I know no one has seen him, but like, I have this weird feeling. I can’t describe it. I sound like a fucking lunatic, but, if you’ve seen him, you’d tell me, right? Right?”

Stewy debated internally whether or not to disclose the truth but hearing Roman’s brotherly concern made the decision pretty clear. “He’s with me.”

“What the fuck.” Roman was suddenly out of breath. “ _Okay_. Is he okay?”

“He’s laying low right now. Showed up out of nowhere in the middle of the night like a fucking cat. But he’s here, with me.”

“Okay but he’s not, like. On a bender at your place or anything, right? Like, he’s not killing himself?”

“No. No, Rome,” Stewy said, easing Roman’s worries immediately. “He’s just resting. Making use of the quiet.”

“Yeah, of course. He didn’t look good when I saw him. And that was like a month ago.”

“He just needs time.” Stewy looked out on the passing buildings, the people on the sidewalk. “Let’s keep this between us though.”

“Yeah, yeah. Stewy?” Stewy hummed. “Just. Make sure he takes care of himself. He’s kind of shit at that.”

Stewy rested his forehead on the cool glass of the car window. 

“Yeah,” he said. “Sure.”

* * *

Stewy was busy the following day but Kendall texted him back once Stewy got to the office. Kendall said he’d go out for a bit but didn’t specify where. It was none of Stewy’s business anyway.

 _It’s raining,_ Stewy texted. _Take one of my coats. There are umbrellas in the closet_

_Cool thanks_

The day was as miserable as any other at Waystar. Tom talked his ear off and the ambitious boil on his back going by the name of ‘Greg the Egg’ was a stuttering mess as he complimented Stewy’s beard.

“I’ve been looking to invest in a quality beard trimmer. Not that I grow facial hair, but, um, I hope to, uh, one day grow… adequate facial hair?”

“Why is everything a question with you?” Stewy muttered in genuine wonderment as he craned his neck upward to gaze at the giraffe-human hybrid.

“Wh-What?”

“Good luck on growing the facial hair, bro.” Stewy nodded his goodbye, leaving Waystar just as another wave of thunderstorms crept across the sky.

Kendall was in the bathroom when Stewy got home. Stewy greeted him through the door but didn’t wait for an answer. He dressed down and went off to the kitchen to begin dinner. 

The speakers embedded in the walls poured forth with his ‘Rainy Day’ playlist as he started soup on the stove. This secretly-curated playlist was comprised of gentle ballads and borderline depressing accounts of broken hearts and lost loves and all the acoustic shit that spoke to Stewy at the most private and embarrassing level.

“Hey,” Stewy greeted when Kendall entered the kitchen fifteen minutes later. “You okay?”

Kendall grinned. “Feeling better.”

Stewy nodded but it wasn’t entirely believable. Now getting a good look at him, Stewy supposed Kendall didn’t care all that much right now. “Hungry?”

“Not really.”

“Can you eat?”

“I can try.”

Kendall sat on a stool at the kitchen island. They talked but refused to ask the other about their day. Kendall didn’t want to hear about Waystar. Stewy didn’t want to hear about what was happening in the bathroom. So they pretended neither was happening and spoke like there was no lost time or understanding between them. 

They fell into old habits of teasing and perhaps flirting, though maybe it wasn’t; they emotionally confused each other and the frustration that followed was expressed in jabs that bordered on hurtful rather than lightly playful. They rolled with the punches, though. Kendall was more animated, quicker to smile. Dread dripped into the pit of Stewy’s stomach and pooled there like a lead puddle that was making it harder to not consider this interaction somewhat painful. 

“You remember when you used to make those noodles back in college?” Kendall’s forearms were on the countertop in front of him. He was picking at a hangnail on his thumb. 

“Those shitty corner store ones, right?”

“They gave you the flavor pack with it already but you’d fuckin’, add all this shit to it,” Kendall said. “Spices and green onions and eggs. It didn’t taste like—what was it? Fifteen cents?—by the time you were finished with it. I thought you could’ve been a chef. I still do.”

“I remember you used to call me on my way home—“ Stewy put on an airy, whiny voice, absolutely over the top and pathetic. _“‘Stewy? Can you make me… can you make me noodles tonight? I- I haven’t eaten at all today. I’ve been busy and, Stewyyy, I’ve been craving them all day—‘“_

Kendall smirked, a mischievous glint in his eye. “Joke’s on you because you always made them for me.”

“How could I not?” It was supposed to be playfully accusatory but it came out much fonder than Stewy would have liked. “I used to be sore as fuck after swimming practice, you know that? And I would still stop by the store in the snow and ice all because I couldn’t let you starve, you prick.”

But what was unsaid was highly audible in the break of conversation: _I cared too much about you to really care about myself._

Steady guitar and soothing vocals singing nonsense words easily understood by the heart seeped from the speakers. Everything turned soft and careful. Kendall slid off his stool. He walked over to where Stewy was leaning back against the counter beside the pot of bubbling soup. Stewy was maybe obviously taken with the amber kitchen light glittering in Kendall’s eyes and blanketing his skin in a warm glow as he came closer. Kendall’s hands flirted with Stewy’s sides, of which jittered beneath the faintest touch of the backs of his fingers. Stewy’s breath stuttered on the inhale, his eyelids drooping slightly as he peered at his best friend standing close enough for Stewy to smell him.

Without a word, Kendall pressed his chest to Stewy’s and leaned against him with his entire body weight. His head fell onto Stewy’s shoulder, his breath fanning the side of his neck and his hand over Stewy’s heart. Kendall pressed his forehead to Stewy’s jaw and Stewy couldn’t help it, rolled his neck so he could press his head against Kendall’s, his eyes shutting and a fire growing in his belly.

It could have been like this. This could have been every night. Dinners and music and reminiscing; but Kendall hadn’t wanted it. He had told Stewy he didn’t want it, at times quite viciously. 

Stewy’s grip tightened on the edge of the granite countertop as Kendall’s thumb stroked sweetly over his sternum as if to calm the hammering heart racing just beneath it.

“I think I’m the one scared of you.”

Kendall broke away just far enough to look up at Stewy. His thumb stilled. 

“We’re just hanging out. Why do you need to get high to hang out with me?” Their eyes met and the hurt reflected there was near identical. “I just want you to be okay,” Stewy said. “You need to get whatever help you need before it gets really bad, Ken. I know you’re not okay—”

“Did you go through my pants?”

Stewy looked away. Kendall’s brow pinched together.

“So, what? No drugs while I’m here? Since when is that how it goes?”

“Since now,” Stewy murmured.

Kendall scoffed. “You’re my fuckin’ mom?”

“No, I’m your fucking concerned—“ Stewy stopped himself. “Just. Do what you need to do, but please, don’t do it behind my fucking back. I know you’re going through shit but just, come talk to me first and we can figure it out.”

Kendall searched Stewy’s concerned, pleading face, his mouth twitching upward in a smug smirk. “You mean come talk to you so you can get yours.”

Stewy frowned. “I don’t want any of that shit.”

“You’re clean?”

“I cleaned out my whole stash a month ago or something.”

“Good for you.”

“It’s not a competition.”

“Didn’t say it was.”

Kendall’s hand slid off Stewy’s chest. Stewy watched, hopeless and already missing him, as Kendall got himself a water bottle from the fridge and left the kitchen.

“Dinner’s almost done, dude. Where are you going?”

“Tired,” Kendall said just as he disappeared down the hall. “Eat without me.”

Stewy turned to face the stove with a tight shake of his head and a sigh. The soup bubbled and spit, releasing a warm and delicious aroma that somehow failed to make Stewy feel anything other than lost. 

Stewy shuffled into the bedroom with a bowl of soup in each hand and a glass of water squeezed precariously in the crook of his elbow. Kendall wasn’t asleep but he did not stir until the mattress dipped to his left. He sat up, the both of them wordless as Kendall took his respective bowl and Stewy set the glass on the bedside table. They ate together with their backs against the headboard and silence over them. For once, it wasn’t tense. It was an easy, comfortable quiet soothing their nerves and it felt like the old days when they didn’t need anything but each other. 

Stewy was nearly done with his dinner when Kendall placed his spoon in the half-eaten bowl of soup held in his lap. He rested his head on Stewy’s shoulder and Stewy rested his head on Kendall, turning slightly so he could bury his nose in his hair.

“I didn’t mean to make you feel, bad, for not being clean. Like, that’s not how I meant it—”

“I know,” Kendall murmured. 

“I’m just worried.”

“I know.”

_“Ken.”_

“Shh.” Kendall placed a hand on Stewy’s bicep. Stewy put his hand over Kendall’s, squeezing his fingers tightly and stroking his knuckles with his thumb.

* * *

They had good days. They had bad days. 

On good days, they were like they had been twenty years ago. They mused about business prospects without any urgency, sprawled across the couch like cats and comfortably half-asleep. They’d recently gotten back into the show _Survivor_ , of which had been “their” show on Wednesday nights at Harvard. Kendall was frequently glued to the screen but Stewy’s attention was split between the flatscreen and Kendall’s face, hypnotized by the way he would bite at his chapped bottom lip during strategic game talk or how he would pick lightly at a barely-there bump of acne on his jaw only then to turn to Stewy and see Stewy’s eyes already on him. Stewy had blushed, answering in a wordless affirmative when Kendall asked him lazily, “Why would he tell Nick about the hidden immunity idol? That’s fucking stupid.”

On good days, Stewy would invite Kendall out for dinner, either a quick prepackaged bite from a bodega or a coffee from one of the coffee shops but Kendall always refused, still paranoid that he would be seen either by family or Waystar employees or journalists, so most of the time they ordered Greek out instead.

Sometimes Kendall’s family got to him first via text message. Kendall would try to be firm in his conviction to not answer them until he was ready but then he’d give in and read the latest text from Roman about how he needed to hear from Kendall, his big brother, so he knew he was okay and so he could actually get some sleep. 

Those nights were the worst. Stewy was there for support but Kendall didn’t want to talk, didn’t want to do much else than go to the bathroom and cope. Stewy was left to wait for him, seemingly calm on the outside but torn up by anxiety until Kendall reappeared, shamefully satiated for the time being and Stewy said nothing but held him tightly in his arms as soon as he dropped down into them. 

Good days or bad days alike, they were sleeping in the same bed. 

“I sleep better with you here,” Kendall said, already under the plush covers. “Some subconscious, primal thing. I don’t know.”

“You Roys are all rats. Pack animals.”

“And what’s that make you?”

Stewy smiled widely as he crawled into bed. “The luckiest cat in the world.”

“More like flea,” Kendall grumbled and Stewy let himself laugh. 

Stewy didn’t know if that was good or bad for them. He didn’t want to think about it. He just knew it felt natural to spoon up behind Kendall and it felt completely right how Kendall leaned back against his chest, their bodies pressed together from shoulder to ankle.

Stewy was nodding off almost as soon as the lights were off. He was shirtless and comfortable, all rigidity having left his body but it seemed to have jumped to Kendall’s, who readjusted himself again and again beneath the covers. His fidgeting jostled Stewy and woke him multiple times, an annoyed huff pushing out of his nostrils and ticklish against the shell of Kendall’s ear.

“What the fuck…” Stewy droned as Kendall moved again, this time inadvertently driving his elbow into Stewy’s side.

“Don’t lean on me, dude.”

“Then where do you want me?”

“I don’t know.” Kendall made a pained sound, turned onto his back. He pressed his shoulder blades back into the mattress, groaned. “My back’s been hurting all day. I slept on it wrong or something.”

“Here, sit up. Get in front of me.” Stewy pushed himself up as Kendall maneuvered in front of him. He found a spot between Stewy’s spread legs while Stewy’s hands found a spot on Kendall’s shoulders. Stewy began kneading the tight muscles there. “How’s that? Does that hurt?”

Kendall’s breath stuttered. _“Shhhit.”_

“Breathe.” Stewy’s thumbs drew circles into the muscle. “Damn, you’re tight.”

Kendall huffed a short laugh; he’d heard the same words from Stewy’s lips before. 

Kendall leaned forward slightly to pull off his shirt. He threw it off the end of the bed and leaned back into Stewy’s hands again. There was a hot twist in Stewy’s stomach at the sight of Kendall like this. His mind pulled to the last time he had seen Kendall without a shirt, though his pants had been gone too. 

Carefully, Stewy slid his palms up and down the warm, smooth skin of his back. His thumb ran down the bumpy line of his vertebrae and Stewy swore it was one of most beautiful sensations he’d ever felt. They were closer now; Stewy might have been breathing down Kendall’s neck as his hands stroked his hips before cradling them and applying pressure simultaneously. 

Kendall moaned. 

Stewy’s eyes snapped upwards to the back of his head. He swallowed quietly, heart racing and dick twitching at the sound. The skin beneath his palms quivered and Stewy wanted to kiss the fuzzy nape of his neck but didn’t dare when Kendall had made it abundantly clear that anything between them did not have the same gravity as any other of his relationships, some of them surprisingly brief. What was this to him, then? The way Stewy slid his hands did not feel like a frat boy’s clumsy, too-hard touch.

This was slow and consistent and careful. This was Kendall asking so openly and Stewy giving with the strength and attentiveness of his hands. Stewy was worshipping Kendall’s body and easing the hurt there, and that wasn’t as insignificant as Kendall made the point of saying last time Stewy had his hands on him. 

It was hard to see in the blue dark but Stewy could feel the increasing heat of Kendall’s flesh as he ran his palms down either side of his spine. Stewy reminded Kendall lowly to breathe, murmured in a way that might have been teasing to, “Calm down.” But they were quickly approaching the point of no return; Kendall was shivering and growing feverish, his fingers gripping at Stewy’s knee, his calf, with familiar urgency. 

“When’s the last time someone touched you like this?” Stewy asked, aroused amusement lacing his tone. 

“Not since you.”

“You don’t have to lie, weirdo.“

“I’m not.” Kendall drew in a sharp intake of breath as he shifted under Stewy’s fingers. “ _Fuck_ , Stewy.”

He’d been holding out then. Or maybe just too busy to find some thick cock to fuck him good. The sounds pushing out of Kendall’s chest were making Stewy hard, as was the whiny lilt of his inaudible pleas. Any other night he would have rolled over him, pressed him into the mattress, then pressed inside him. 

“A-A little lower.”

Blood pounded in Stewy’s ears. “Yeah? Right here?”

His thumbs pressed into either side of Kendall’s spine just above his waistband. The muscle spasmed. Kendall grabbed hold of Stewy’s wrists behind him, his back straightening abruptly. 

“ _Easy._ Easy, Ken.” Stewy slowly circled his thumbs over the tense muscle and this time Kendall swayed back against him so Stewy’s parted lips brushed the back of his head.

Stewy let up on the pressure, feeling light-headed. His nose was filled with the smell of Kendall’s skin and the cozy warmth pouring off of him. Kendall’s chin had fallen to his chest ever so slightly. His breath was ragged. Stewy kept perfectly still but Kendall tightened his grip and pressed his thumbs flatly against the inside of Stewy’s wrists over his pulse. A shiver rippled through his back at the feeling of his pulse thudding against his fingers; Stewy saw the tightness of his skin, the delicious flex of lean muscle.

Tension grew in the silence between them and every miniscule twitch of their bodies. Every audible breath resonated with deafening importance. It made Stewy just eager enough to speak.

“Kendall?”

Kendall’s fingers twitched before loosening. Stewy’s breath picked up as he watched Kendall reach blindly toward him, his stomach going tight just as his fingers made contact with his searing skin. They both made a noise at the touch. Kendall was spurred on, his palm flattening and his fingers spreading almost possessively over Stewy’s torso behind him. He drug his hand down without turning to look, his nails scratching slightly at the faint trail of hair leading down to his waistband light enough to make Stewy’s dick twitch.

Kendall’s finger wrapped around the end of the knotted string at the front of his sweatpants.

“Nope.”

Kendall looked at Stewy from over his shoulder. “Wh-What?”

“It’s not a good idea,” Stewy said. 

There was a pause then Kendall huffed a laugh. “You’re just trying to get back at me.”

“I’m giving you what you said you wanted.” 

This separation—this was what Kendall had insisted on.

Back when they had first discovered that deeply intimate territory of their relationship, that state of caring about one another much gentler and much more completely than they ever had before. They had not spoken about it but had informally tried to recreate that night out of their own curiosity to see if it could be done. Their excited interest was palpable of whether or not those feelings of something like “love” had been a random occurrence depending on the position of unseen planets or some one in a million chance of synthesis of hormones, pheromones, whatever.

But as soon as the door of Stewy’s home had shut behind Kendall, it was already there. It was easier now, not so much of a stretch to fall into it. It was a strong magnetism between them and then they were falling together into careful intimacy. It was like they were high, the way they were just feeling and tasting and disregarding all personal space without the rush to fuck and get it over with. 

This was to be savored. 

Stewy was content to eat Kendall out lazily sometimes up to an hour or until his jaw ached as Kendall bit his fingers and moaned around them. Other times Kendall wanted to keep Stewy in his mouth for the entirety of a movie playing on the television or would insist Stewy stay in his ass long after they had both reached completion.

Stewy was fine with this being a more frequent occurrence. He thought it was a given Kendall would feel the same about these slow fucks, the deep kisses, the constant caressing beneath sheets smelling of them, together.

But there had been an afternoon when Kendall had turned away from Stewy’s kisses so they landed at the corner of his mouth. He would not look at Stewy, jaw set tightly even when Stewy held his cheek. Stewy had been dumbstruck when Kendall ripped himself out of his arms and away from the bed that felt like theirs to stalk off to the living room with the short and insufficient explanation that he needed to go, now. He couldn’t do this anymore.

“What do you mean?” Kendall pulled on his pants, buttoned them without a word. “Tell me what the fuck’s going on.”

“This is, something else. I can’t do this.”

“What?”

“Best friends don’t fuck, Stewy. Because when they do, they start to have feelings, and feelings fuck everything up.”

“What’s it fucking up?” And this was about the time Stewy’s heart began shattering. “Was that fucked up in there? I’m genuinely asking.”

“Fuck you.”

“No, fuck you!”

“Whatever you think is happening fucking isn’t. You only wish it was because you’re so, so—“ Kendall shook his head, looked up at Stewy with a dark, venomous sheen to his eyes. “I want nothing to do with you outside of you putting your dick in my ass and making me cum. And you can’t even do that anymore without getting all…weird.”

Kendall was in a hurry to gather his belongings, battling with his shoes while his shirt was still unbuttoned. His expression was steely but his body read a mess. He was trembling slightly. Stewy hadn’t been sure if it was from the AC or the traumatizing situation he was weaving.

“What about you?”

Kendall, turned halfway away from Stewy and clutching his shoes in his hands, froze. A part of Stewy wanted to spare him from this, but another part of him was breaking into pieces and that part wanted all that developing hurt out in the open so he might not be suffering alone.

“There are absolutely no feelings when you make me kiss you when we’re fucking? Or when you want me to hold you right after? Really, Kendall? I’m the one making it weird?” Stewy’s eyes burned. “You fucking hypocrite.”

He couldn’t be sure but Stewy hoped what he saw was true, that tear of wrath and hurt trailing down Kendall’s cheek before he left out the door.

They had not spoken for two weeks following that night but they had no choice when working so closely together. Kendall had tried resuming his teasing with an awkward and insulting air as he made comments at the office that a good fuck might take his mind off the bullshit meeting he had to attend that afternoon. But Stewy had not forgotten Kendall’s words; those words had prevented adequate sleep and suppressed his appetite. Stewy no longer trusted himself to slide his cock into Kendall without immediately feeling too much, so he offered nothing more than a curt comment of sympathy and a wish of good luck that sounded more like a curse of his name. 

Kendall could get it somewhere else from someone else. He could get it from someone who didn’t know his name, who didn’t care about him outside of him being tight and warm. There was nothing wrong with that but Stewy couldn’t give him that anymore. Things were different now and it was both the best and worst thing that had ever happened to Stewy.

Those same words flooded his mind now as Kendall lay against him with a hard dick and hot skin. And maybe Kendall was right. Maybe Stewy really did want to stick it to him in a way that wasn’t satisfying at all just to see him want, to see him yearn, just as Stewy had been forced to. 

Stewy said nothing as Kendall leaned back against his chest and hooked his thumbs in the waistband of his own sweatpants. Kendall hissed as his cock came free from its soft confines. It curved toward his stomach in a dramatic arch, embarrassing and alluring in its excessive hardness. Kendall’s eyes fluttered shut as he licked his palm. His dick twitched and jumped in time with his heartbeat before being taken into his hand. Kendall stroked once, the circle of his fingers tightening just below the head to force a fat bead of precum from his slit. And it must have felt good because Stewy could feel the tremble of his spine and Kendall’s brought his legs up, toes curled, a moan escaping his sticky lips.

Stewy’s fingers tightened in the sheets on either side of him.

Kendall’s rhythm started out easy and slow. Each long stroke from base to tip was accompanied with a moan. His knees fell open and landed on Stewy’s. He was warm through his pants, almost too hot. Kendall was all Stewy could smell, all he could feel at this moment and the slick, sticky sound of precum aiding the thoughtful movement of his hand made Stewy’s mouth water.

_“Stewy.”_

Stewy whined. Kendall turned slightly to look at him but Stewy refused to indulge him, so he looked away instead. Now it was Kendall who was whining. Stewy took it as a small victory. 

But it was defeat Stewy felt when hot breath panted out of Kendall’s sopping wet mouth and against the side of his throat, quiet moans laced in each one of them. Kendall had since stilled his grip and was fucking his fist with tight thrusts that brought his hips a fraction off the bed and his ass conveniently to bump against Stewy’s erection.

Kendall’s bit his bottom lip just as his shiny wet cockhead emerged from the tight circle of his fingers. “W-Wish you were inside me. Filling me up, holding me open. Need your cock so bad.”

Heat coiled in Stewy’s gut at those filthy words pouring from Kendall’s sloppy mouth.

“Shh,” Stewy hushed firmly, willing himself to not sound as turned on as he felt. “You’re being too loud.”

This acknowledgment was encouragement enough and Kendall craned his neck back so his throat was exposed. An agitated growl of pleasure resonated high in his throat, a huff from his nostrils following it. “Need you, so much. You’d be so good; you’re always so good for me, Stewy.”

“Kendall,” Stewy admonished but Kendall gave no sign of quieting. Stewy’s jaw tightened. He wrapped an arm around Kendall’s head to hold him still against his shoulder and slipped two fingers into the wet heat of Kendall’s mouth. _“Quiet.”_

Kendall, after his initial surprise, hollowed his cheeks and worked his jaw, threading his tongue between Stewy’s fingers and swirling around them. Stewy watched through half-lidded eyes they way his red lips grew slick around his fingers, the way Kendall’s chest began rising and falling faster, how the movement of his hand became a blur on his leaking dick. 

Kendall moaned loudly around Stewy’s fingers, his whole body shaking and his back arching as his hips pressed flush against his fist and stilled. Thick ropes of cum shot from the end of his dick and landed on his quivering stomach. It must have been awhile since he had gotten off; more pulsed out of him with each hard twitch of his cock until it was dribbling in pearly beads down his blood-red shaft.

“There you go,” Stewy praised in a hushed voice despite his best efforts, fingers stroking Kendall’s hair back as he looked upon the beautiful mess held securely in his arms. “Good boy.”

Kendall hummed high in his throat at the praise. His mouth went slack and the suction around Stewy’s fingers trailed off in weakening pulses. Stewy withdrew his fingers and took advantage of the dark and Kendall’s dazed focus on the ceiling to suck them into his own mouth to clean away Kendall’s saliva before wiping them on the sheets behind him. 

Kendall’s hand snaked lazily between their bodies. He grabbed hold of Stewy’s erection through his pants and squeezed the hard, hot outline of him almost affectionately. A strangled noise punched out of Stewy’s lungs as he throbbed against Kendall’s fingers. The toe-curling pleasure Kendall’s twitching fingers was tempting but Stewy had enough sense to grab hold of Kendall’s wrist and pull him away. 

“I’m sorry,” Kendall whispered.

Stewy sighed out of his nose. “I know.”

Stewy slid out from under Kendall and did not chance so much as a glance at him as he went off to the bathroom. Once behind the safety of the door, Stewy slapped on the light clumsily and stumbled over to the sink while pulling down his pants, his thick cock pulsing and painfully hard. 

His mouth fell open as he stroked himself, images of Kendall sprawled out beneath him playing in his mind's eye and bringing him closer to orgasm. He licked his lips and vaguely tasted Kendall’s tongue, and that was when he lost it and shot into the sink, hips twitching forward in short thrusts as he rode out his orgasm.

Kendall was already asleep when Stewy returned. His pants were pulled up, his face lax. The blanket was pulled over his naked torso haphazardly but he looked comfortable in a way that reminded Stewy of how it used to be, how this thing between them used to be. There was still hope then.

Stewy slept on the couch that night. It felt weird to sleep alone despite having done so for the past few years. Only when he was settled on the plush cushions in that room seemingly monstrous in the dark did he register just how exhausted he was. He almost felt like crying but thankfully dozed off before a single tear could manifest. 

Stewy did not dream that night but tossed and turned. He couldn’t be sure, but he swore at one point in the middle of the night a pair of lips pressed against his cheek.

* * *

It was raining when Stewy woke up. The apartment was empty too, which only added to his dampened mood. He did not have to get up from the couch to know Kendall was gone; it was some weird instinct they had for each other that they were constantly aware of the other’s presence.

Stewy picked up his phone off the coffee table and read the texts there.

 _I went ahead and headed out. Thanks for putting up with me. Sorry I was such a mess. You’ll probably never let me live it down but  
_ _Just wanted you to know I really appreciate it_

Stewy reread those two texts three times before replying.

 _No problem  
_ _It’s what I’m here for_

The aching emptiness returned to Stewy’s chest in the wake of Kendall’s absence. Stewy trudged down the hall and fell onto the cold bed onto his stomach, his face buried in Kendall’s pillow.

Stewy texted Roman and told him not to expect him at the office and to leave him alone; they could brief him tomorrow on whatever mess they were making for themselves in his absence. 

He did not wait for an answer but fell into fitful sleep and woke up twelve hours later at six. He had fully expected to stay in bed all day but couldn’t bear to stay here a second longer when all he could smell was Kendall’s sweat and spit and cum. So he went out at dusk into Manhattan and sat at an empty pizza joint, eating a slice alone as he watched the cool blue night descend over the street just outside the window. 

* * *

Stewy didn’t know how to feel when Kendall texted him some weeks later. 

It was out of necessity and strictly business, but still, there was something unsaid lingering beneath those long lines of business jargon. Stewy was rather rattled by it, kind of creeped out, and had to sink into the distraction of anonymous sex to rid himself of the clammy coldness of awkwardness. 

Their correspondence was brief and mostly unsubstantial during this short-term project at Waystar. Maybe Stewy was just getting older but he didn’t mind it when Kendall texted him for half an hour about nonsense. Sometimes he’d send Stewy memes Sophie had sent him; Stewy would learn that she had recently gotten a phone and Kendall was already regretting it if for no other reason than for the strange humor that mostly eluded him. 

Business was the icebreaker and then they’d fall into easier conversation that meandered and went nowhere for fifteen minutes until one of them ran out of things to say, at which point they stopped texting until a week later when something new came up.

And then, nothing. 

The texts trickled off then ceased altogether. Specific responsibilities at Waystar pulled them to different floors so they never had to see each other. What had happened at Stewy’s home all that time ago seemed like a faraway dream, some sad fantasy of desperation and confusion and hurt. It might not have mattered even though it had mattered to Stewy when he’d held Kendall in his arms and wasted days with him watching TV and eating gyros. 

It must have been a whole five months before Stewy heard from Kendall again. It came in the form of a text message while Stewy was out at an exclusive club in Brooklyn with some of Sandy’s cronies. 

_Are you free tonight?_

Stewy was sure he was hallucinating when he first read Kendall’s name on the screen. He sat there waiting for it to disappear on the next blink of his eyes but it remained. Stewy took a deep breath in, sipped his cocktail.

 _Sure_ , he texted back cooly despite the fact the surprise message had sent his heart racing. 

Sandy bumped up behind him with a brief greeting and a drunken smile. 

“I have a friend you might take a liking to,” Sandy slurred, leaned in a bit closer to whisper not as quietly as he might have thought. _“No gag reflex.”_

_You want to come over? I’ve been meaning to talk to you_

Stewy waved Sandy away with a grimace. _Okay._

The first thing Stewy thought when Kendall answered the door was that he looked good. Less sick, actually well-rested for once. He only ever looked like that when he was sober. He wore an olive green shirt tight to his skin. It looked good on him, though Stewy liked Kendall in his clothes infinitely better. 

Stewy felt overdressed as he walked into Kendall’s place. His jacket weighed too heavy on his shoulders, the buttons of his shirt too constrictive. He made no move to make himself more comfortable; he needed to be ready to run.

“Have you eaten?” Kendall asked as he passed Stewy into the kitchen. Stewy remained standing in the walkway, expression feeling steely even to him. “I made dinner. Tried to anyway. I just used what I had so, vegetables and rice.”

Stewy shook his head. His palms were sweaty in his pockets.

“Oh. Okay.” Kendall nodded and wiped his hands on his pants. “That’s fine. I’ll eat later then. I don’t want to—“

“I’m not that hungry,” Stewy said, “because I don’t know if what you want to tell me is good news or bad news. It feels like it’s probably bad news, though. Considering the circumstances.”

“‘Circumstances.’”

“The silence.”

“Yeah. I mean—” Kendall’s weak smile disappeared. He swallowed. “No, it’s good news. I think. I don’t know.”

Stewy sighed. “Let’s figure it out, then.”

Kendall left his dinner to wait on the countertop and went into the living room. He sat on the charcoal-colored couch and awaited Stewy who was admittedly hesitant to join him.

He was just being cautious. For the past month, Stewy’d been lovesick again. It was a muted nagging feeling at the core of his being, kind of the same as when you forgot something. He had to wash his sheets and get used to sleeping alone again. It hadn’t been as easy as it should have been, but nothing was ever easy when Kendall was involved.

Whatever Kendall was about to tell him would probably break Stewy all over again, but he couldn’t help himself; he had to know. 

They sat with what must have been a foot of space between them. Having Kendall so close made his stomach burn and flutter simultaneously. Stewy didn’t make eye contact even when he could gauge Kendall’s gaze on him in his periphery. He couldn’t handle it, not right now. 

“I’m going to tell you what this is all about,” Kendall said, his voice a welcome break in the silence. “But I don’t want you to talk. Just listen. Okay?”

Stewy said nothing but gave a slight nod with a quick glance ever so slightly over at the man beside him. His heart hurt. 

Kendall steadied himself with a breath and then he began. “I was thinking a while ago about that night I came over to your place. I was trying to remember why I went to yours. I don’t think I ever told you the specifics, but I had been in Manhattan that whole time, so the fact I would catch a train to Queens that late at night when I was that fucked up made no sense.”

Kendall shook his head with what might have been shame. Stewy didn’t want him to feel ashamed. He wanted to tell him that, but he didn’t dare speak.

“It would keep me up at night. I would just turn it over and over again in my head, trying to go back to that place and try to understand my own thought process. Then it clicked,” Kendall said. “Why I went to you. I went to you because I’ve been doing it my entire life. When I couldn’t go to anyone else. When I didn’t want to. I showed up at yours that night because I was drunk and I was high and I was scared, and something in me just said I needed you. But then I thought that just because I need you doesn’t mean it’s fair to you. It’s fucking unfair. The last time I had come to that conclusion was that night we fought.”

Kendall’s fingers tightened in his lap. He looked down at his white knuckles, something conflicted pulling in his face. “I was fucking scared, dude. That night.” And Stewy knew by the tone in his voice he was not speaking of their most recent nights together but rather that one night some time ago when their relationship had been redefined. “Something changed and I was… _terrified_. Because it shouldn’t have been that easy. Nothing comes that easy and I was convinced—I was convinced it was fake or if it was real, that I didn’t deserve it… I don’t deserve you. I said all that shit that night because I had convinced myself that me loving you was unfair to you.”

Stewy looked at Kendall. His chest was rising and falling a fraction faster, Stewy’s eyes just a little bit wider.

“I’m a mess. I’m a Roy.” Kendall smirked mirthlessly. “I’m a mess because I’m a Roy. That’s a lot of multi-billion dollar baggage but honestly looking at it now, you were probably the most adept person to deal with me. And that just... speaks to how amazing of a person you are. You’ve always been that person I could trust. I mean, not in terms of business!”

Stewy had to laugh at that. The sound punched out of him with shocked surprise, Stewy both amused and taken off guard by the unexpected aside that was very much true. Kendall laughed with him, reached a hand out to squeeze his arm and the warm touch made Stewy’s laughter falter, made his heart throb.

“No, listen—like, maybe I’m a masochist in this way but I… liked it. I think I liked you being a hardass like how a warrior likes a worthy opponent or something.” Kendall took back his hand, the humor trickling from his face. “I liked the game of it. The difficulty. The dysfunction. But I lost. And it’s taken me losing to see that none of it matters. All except you. Because you’re the only one… that actually matters to me outside of the game. And that might be love. But I don’t know.”

The room was enveloped in silence again. There was nothing but the faintest hum of the heater from the vents high above them. Time might have stopped just then, for Stewy was frozen in his place on Kendall’s couch.

“So that’s what I’ve been thinking about for the past couple of months. And I thought you should know since it’s about you.” Kendall let a sigh pass his lips. He smiled softly. “So? Good or bad?”

Stewy didn’t say a word. He scoffed. He cleared his throat, swallowed. He took in a deep inhale only for it to tremble, the surprise choppy sound of his breath causing his fingers to dig into his biceps where his arms were crossed across his chest. Stewy steadied himself as best he could before finally turning to look at Kendall. 

It never would change for him, the way he felt when he looked at Kendall. It had always been like that, from the time they were in high school together to now that they were pushing forty. It had really felt like only them a lot of the time. Sometimes it still did. They were both tasked with dealing with their own specific brands of shit the universe had dealt them but then they’d look at each other across the room or close by or under the covers and all of it, whatever had been chasing after them, whatever had been tormenting them—all of it didn’t matter suddenly because they were stronger than it, together.

And _that_ might have been love, but Stewy kind of always knew. 

Stewy did not uncross his arms as he leaned over and fell against Kendall’s shoulder. Kendall’s arms were immediately around his shoulders, his fingers threading in his hair as Stewy hid his face against him. Kendall was murmuring soothing words mostly inaudible as Stewy let himself get lost in the lull of their cadence as he inhaled the warm fabric over Kendall’s shoulder.

Stewy wrapped his arms around Kendall’s torso. His hands breached the hem of Kendall’s shirt and spread possessively over his lower back. The residual sting of yearning like a burn in his chest lingered but was slowly being eased. Stewy wanted to say a lot but at the same time had no idea what to say.

So instead he pulled back just enough so he could look once more into Kendall’s teary eyes and then kissed him. The age old love always having been there between them and in every touch and breath they shared together could be felt as Kendall held Stewy’s face and kissed his cheeks, his eyelids, his lips.

Kendall loved Stewy. Stewy loved Kendall. Always had. Nothing else mattered. And it was good.


End file.
